well, got my first translation job back. Actually, a few days before that I was offered 16 pages, which would have almost paid for an entire month of expensive, but because my pocket pc is still broken (thank you Ruskin) I could not respond to my email fast enough and they ended up giving it to someone else. But my friend here gave me his old phone, through which I can also email and even hook up my computer to the internet, so I will spend today setting that up and hopefully soon fully back on track. Then I will send an email to the Texas woman telling her I am available to take work from her as well. In the meantime I decided to throw 30 bucks at google for one month and sees if that leads to something. My ads will now show up in the US next to searches like "Czech to English translations" and "Czech to English translator". So far about 20 people actually clicked on my webpage because of this, which cost me about 4.5$, but still nothing, boohoo. Speaking of google money, such ads on my own site have now brought me earning of 170$, so that could come in handy one day. Still only revenues of about a dollar a day, but that's 360$ a year and better than nothing. Hoping that will increase over time, but the point is, it doesn't really cost me any work and just keeps accumulating.
Found some new sites where to look for Czech to English translation work, and responded to one ad on a major site, which ended up giving me the last work. Rather a hell job and attaching it for your interest. But it's an Indian translation agency, so hopefully I'll get paid for that. About one day's work and should be enough to cover more than half a month of costs.
On another front, my treeplanting boss is holding onto 1200$, so I am trying to muscle that money out of him.
And still on another front, my friend here says there are lots of jobs he could find me, and one in particular (plan to apply on Monday), apparently I just sit there and do practically nothing all day, and make about a 900 dollars a month. If that is the case I can keep working on kenax while at work. That will probably have to be the condition of employment for me and will have to think about that. But even at such a low wage, I should be able to pay off some debts over the winter and save up for another plane ticket to hopefully put in a longer season next summer. Already emailing with some treeplanting companies. But I'd prefer to make much more than that over the winter, and not even have to go back treeplanting, although I'm already forgetting what a brutal job it was and remembering some nice moments.
Oh, finally put up my first draft website for treeplanting at http://hardcoretreeplanters.com/, if you'd like to check out some of the pics. Put up my treeplanting accounting software there as well, if you'd like to give me your opinion about that setup. Tried to make it as easy to understand as possible.
Well, off to see if I can get email now on my mobile.
-------------------------
> I understand what you do is very difficult and I believe it could be usefull. However it wasn't at the time. You did miss May 16th on the cheques which meant I had to pay a huge bill in august with the letter to everyone. you also missed Carlie.
Well, there was a lot of things going around, I thought back on this, and in my murky memory I thought you asked me not to deal with her at that time. Not sure. I remember erasing my data from the table you wanted to send to your accountant, and I think that perhaps you said you will deal with Carlie's, so I erased her name from the table as well. In her case it was a simple matter of adding up the number of days times 300 or whatever. Perhaps the same as Jim's. But I'm sure I didn't erase her name from the table on my own initiative alone.
A lot of things were happening in the shuffle and I never really felt I was "your accountant", to take things fully by the horns, so to speak. You never really paid for any of my time, when I offered to give you a 30 minute presentation how the Access works you always seemed to make an expression like you have a million other things you need to do and really would rather not deal with it. When I asked for the records of who you gave advances to etc., so that I could finalise the Access accounting so that you could compare the output against what you have in Excel, you seemed quite disinterested and didn't even respond to me. That night when you asked me to take the bull by the horns more and help Carlie with the accounting, it seemed to me she had it roughly under control and I didn't want to be belligerent on top of her work. That day when I was working on the block in the truck on the computer, I saw where many of the holes were. What needed to be done is to point out those holes so that the foremen could look in their notes or whatever and complete the tallies. Carlie was saying the same thing. I've been reflecting on this and I guess one of the problems is that I have spent the last 15 years working by myself and communicating to people through email alone. Promising when to deliver something, getting it done (in turn telling people what to do, through email), checking the work, and delivering it. I am simply not used to being in an "office environment" where I have to deal with multiple people on the spot, and the dynamics of it. So I grew to realize over the summer that, if I were to be working in such an environment again, I have to learn to be more assertive and take the bull by the horns more. Furthermore, I like Carlie and I felt I would be trodding all over her work, and making her look bad. Which is why I left that night, and she told me later that everything turned out good.
Perhaps it is the same with whatever I did on your accounting. I should have pushed myself more, and maybe been more in your face about it. I generally do not like being in people's faces at all. Or for example, when I was roomies with Jim on that four day contract with him, he was ready to write down his tallies, right next to me as I had my laptop open. He asked about it and I said, "Sure, all the tallies can be punched into the computer no problem." His eyes kind of wandered around the room a bit, then he proceeded to write down the tallies on paper. Perhaps instead I should have said, "Yes Jim, let me punch the figures for you in the computer, right here, right now." Seems that perhaps our boats have been grazing each other all summer but never really connecting, and I guess I have to learn to get more assertive in an "office environment" or something.
Nevertheless, I guess it is all water under the bridge now and I have to chalk it up as a learning experience.
Since I don't like wasting my efforts, I'm willing to help you transfer to Access, as I truly feel it will save you a lot of work. And as I said at the start of the summer, I've been wanting to move in this logistics consultation direction for many years, so learning how to deal with customers on this level is important to me. Already one of the treeplanting companies I approached complimented me on my software, saying they use PlantWizard and have grown accustomed to it, but after looking through my website re my accounting software, he said it looks like I single handedly put together pretty much the same package, by myself, over a summer while treeplanting, what the PlantWizard team of programmers has put together over several years. I am just citing what he told me and haven't had a chance to look at their software yet, but from a logistics point of view, it all gets down to only a few simple points: how much work does it take to punch in the data, and what output and results will the software generate. My system outputs everything I thought would be useful (and more can be easily added, depending on what people tell me they need), and you cannot save more time punching tallies than the system I devised, lest they have computers which can read your mind and do that for you.
What concerns the below, well, I'll just blow it off. I was told that, with income of only 10,000$ a year, I wouldn't have to pay any taxes. The rest of the year I'm surviving off a string budget of 10$ a day, not having any rent, electricity or other such bills to pay. I've had a recent string of bad luck with the occasional customer who has not paid me, and I haven't been earning much over the past two years, which is why I was forced to go treeplanting. So even if I added my income for the rest of the year, not sure I would have to pay much. But what I make outside of Canada I consider my business. I also have Czech citizenship and I'm not a fan of big brother and every government needing to know what I do in other countries etc. So I'd like to leave Canadian taxes separate, for when I occasionally go back there and work.
I don't believe I ever asked you to pay me under the table. I was suggesting an invoice, as I have a legitimate business in the Czech Republic. It is no strange thing to outsource one's work overseas. It is the way of globalization and an absolutely normal affair. I did afterall do some work for you (the accounting), so there is some legitimate justification for this. But towards the very end of the summer you said that you cannot justify more than 2500$ on invoice, being the small company that you are. I said fine, and indicated that we can pump the rest through Revenue Canada. I never once anticipated that you would pay me under the table and that some percentage of my pay would go towards your corporate taxes. I very well understand this concept and the problematics of paying someone under the table, which would increase your profits and hence taxable income, since you cannot write off the legitimate expense. That is why I never dreamed of asking this of you. I did not consider issuing you an invoice for webwork as a risk to you, but if you felt uncomfortable about that, I would have just done it through Revenue Canada. It's just that I had no time once getting off the plane to research my situation (having been gone from Canada so long etc.), so I was simply looking for alternative options.
> I don't pay anybody elses tax. nobody pays my taxes. I truely don't understand why I'd pay your tax upon doing you a favor, paying you off the books, as you asked of me.
Concerning "You did miss May 16th on the cheques which meant I had to pay a huge bill in august with the letter to everyone", I have absolutely no clue what you are talking about. Perhaps this is an indication of where our boats grazed but missed each other. I never felt you gave me an official position, you never paid me for anything, I didn't get cooperation from you, I guess I should have been more assertive, and perhaps you should have been more assertive and talked to me in 1s and 0s what exactly I was supposed to do.
Anyway, hope you don't have any hard feelings because of all this. I was rather depressed the entire summer, having to go back to grunt work in such a late point in my life. Perhaps another reason why I didn't take things by the bull more, who knows. Over the past decade I've made some good cash, my best being 100,000USD of profits in one month for a large translation project I did for Dupont, and my system is much better developed now than it was back then. So I see there is good potential for me. Now just to pull my head out of my arse and hopefully make something out of my life. later
------------------------
Treeplanting,huh? Saving the planet? :) ( I guess I am only eating meat very rarely, not printing emails and going to work by mass transportation means..:P)
yes, treeplanting was fun. You can check out some pictures at http://hardcoretreeplanters.com/ if you like, a website I put together myself and through which I hope to make some money. I'm pretty green as well. I do all my reading on the laptop and don't think I use any paper at all, solar electricity, laundry using sea water in a bucket with a bit of shampoo... But I guess the diesel is the last problem, although they say my old caravan truck can handle frenchfrie grease. Will have to research that first.
Thanks for the bank tip and will check it out.
Concerning the server thing, I guess the only thing I can think of import is the email addresses you collected, such as of the Chinese companies.
Have a good time in Hungary. If you ever go up to Prague, which I'd say might be the world's most beautiful city, I can hook you up with my friends.
Well, I am not too good about banks, but I do know that OTP Bank does accept opening accounts, etc with a passport. Actually I know this because I found a job in Budapest and I am moving there and was also looking for a bank that does not complicate my life too much.This OTP is a Hungarian bank, I know it is present in Hungary and Romania, I do not know about Czech Republic. But after all Budapest is close to Prague :) About your server, well, first of all, I am very sorry for it, but what exactly emails you need? I know I sent them from the gmail address so should be here in the Sent folder somewhere, I can look for them.
my bank ebanka.cz was bought out by Refeisen, they did a lot of changes while I was gone treeplanting to Canada for the past three months, failed to inform me of them because they were sending their emails from a new email address, which did not get through my spamguard and they did not respond to my automatic spamguard challenges, so I was not able to make their requested changes and now they closed my bank account. But that is probably good, because I realised their higher charges now add up to 20$ a month, which I consider quite ridiculous for someone to hold onto my money. Do you know of any banks in Rumania or elsewhere in Europe where I can open a bank account online using my Canadian passport? I just need a basic (and preferably inexpensive) service through which I can login online to send money to translators within Europe and other parts of the world. How are things going with you?
---------------------------
> nice to hear from you and even nicer to hear that you plant trees in Canada. Hope you will carry on with this noble activity in Europe.
thanks for the tip. Tried Mbank already but I have to have a residence in the country. Will keep trying.
I'm still in Cyprus so will not be able to join you for beers, boohoo.
Have a good one,
There has been a quite a large advertisement campaign for Mbank, www.mbank.sk or www.mbank.cz, keeping accounts free of charge and providing some very nice services such as withdrawal with the credit card abroad free of charge also. And it is a subsidiary of Commerzbank, which should be a sort of solid German bank. I know that this MBank was waiting to their international SWIFT code a couple of months ago, but I think they already have it and they should be fully operational. I have no idea as to the formalities of opening an account with them. I do think they are too selective when it comes to passports. I use tatrabanka, www.tatrabanka.sk which is a subsidiary of Reiffeisen in Slovakia, it is good but quite expensive too. I am in Prague now, until the end of October or November, than going to Brussels. If you show up in the meantime, I'd like to invite you for a beer and have some real chat with you. Hope to see you soon,
-----------------------------
> You hankering down for the winter, or what? Work? Hobby?
Cool tips below and wish I had money to burn to play in the stock market and all that. Put some of my economics education to use, but I find it interesting anyway.
Back on the island and aggressively looking for work. After slamming all those trees into the ground had plenty of time to reflect on things and decided to be more practical about my approach to getting customers. But building on my previous work and trying to tie it all together, so hopefully something will work out. About a month left of decent weather and then "winter" starts creeping in. Ol' Jimbo coming down for a month visit. Hope we don't kill each other. Owe him the favour since he lent me planefare to get out planting. If things don't pan out after a month may start to look for manual work or something on the south side. Need to save up for another plane fare for hopefully a longer season of planting, perhaps five months, so that I can save something. But would rather avoid all that and become successful at this. Crossin my fingers. If I get enough work but not too much, some construction work for you sounds like a great way to keep the circulation going. :0)
Ok, so you're catching up.. the USD ANd GBP have been overvalued for years, so they're only getting what they deserve! and it's gonna get worse. The days of US influence are waning, and world is going to be calling in all those debts over the next few years. Mr Bush and his invasion of Afghan/Iraq/Pakistan have driven confidence in US policy to an all-time low, from which it will not recover. as far as buyers market is concerned.. if you want to buy into US housing and take a huge risk, now could be exciting... BUT When there is a crunch, the realists sell up and get out; others hang on and see what happens... its when this latter bunch start to chicken out that you get the real bargains.. i reckon next year will be interesting! You hankering down for the winter, or what? Work? Hobby?
been catching up on news after being in the bush for the summer and find this credit crunch rather interesting. Gather you would have considered that right about now it might be a good buyers market out there, if you have spare cash?
good to hear you back in the real world and found the bus intact, i guess! Here in Bulgaria mountains it never really gets too hot, and nature is supreme, so think you would like it.. Bear it in mind for next year coz i hate to think of a crazy mind like yours stuck into tree planting when i have lots of real constructive stuff to do! At least it's not too far away if you want to give it a go. Will probably kick off about March, depending on the weather. Have also got winter work going on in the Greek island of Thasos, which is about 100kms due south of here, but much warmer of course Have good winter but HOPEFULLY now have a small team up and running and the work is moving!
well, finally back on my island and slowly getting set up again. My nephew broke my fancy mobile phone and now I'm a bit screwed with work, since I cannot check my email regularly and other things. But hooked up the fancy antenna and was surprised to find that I can actually catch several wifi connections right on the beach. So will have to research that and see if I can set up an account with one of them. Have a new strategy to help me find work, so hopefully that will pan out. If things go moderately well, perhaps I could drive up next summer and help you with construction. Either for free or sustenance survival, depending on how much work I will have at that point. But this Canadian blood cant handle much above 33C. How's the weather up there during the summer? Or perhaps I could help out when the temperature is something I can handle? Will keep in touch. Not sure if I would want too much more of this treeplanting work, and if so, would need to put in a longer season than only three months. Your shag stories were funny. You're a regular writer! If you need to promote some website, you might consider starting a blog and use the text to link to your sites. I use all my old outgoing emails for that. Some anonymous google blog account which links to my various pages from key words. People don't even have to read it for positive results, but definitely helps if it is interesting. No links back to the blog, so that none of your friends could find out your deep dark secrets, heh heh. laterbro
